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[AugustWest]

Nice list!

... but Weird Al in the top 5?

[Drygioni]

How comes so many (well, three or so I guess) people here like Blur? I always thought Britpop was treated as some bad dream by you blokes and birds over the pond.

Is Weird Al Yankovic that guy who covers well known songs but changes the words to make them humourous? Is that technically music? It's like saying The Onion is a source of news. It IS, but it ISN'T. You see? You see?

[littlefallsmets]

... but Weird Al in the top 5?

Dunno what to say... I really love Weird Al. I love comedy music and I love tight musicianship and... like... say what you will about Weird Al but often in the songs he parodies, the instrumentation is much better technically than that which he mocks.

Which is mind-blowingly awesome to me, as most other comedy rock is done with... you know... a guy strumming an acoustic guitar for one take or three teenagers in a bathroom with two Casios. The notable exceptions of Fruvous and TMBG, of course.

The guy's original work, the style parodies that don't directly parody any song, rather a band's entire work or an entire genre... they tend to be flawlessly written. The guy also puts on one of the best live shows ever, seriously.

This is going to sound laden with pretense but you sort of can't appreciate Weird Al without sitting down and, like, listening to his whole body of work and realizing how well he does at a genre that's much easier to do poorly than "regular" music but also might be harder to do well than "regular" music. Writing funny words to songs and still making them work perfectly musically is a lot harder than it seems... and making a whole song work after you've got the funny version of the chorus but you have to make the verses pay off? Deeply difficult.

Sort of like in television or film writing, where writing bad comedy is the easiest thing in the world, much easier than writing bad drama but writing great comedy is much harder than writing great drama.

As for Blur... well... generally, yeah, the Britpop was generally panned but Blur was the only one of them (in my opinion) that actually had songwriting and instrumental talent, that were trying to do anything more than make money off updating early Beatles stuff for the post-grunge whatever-it-was scene, like Oasis, say.

Blur is regarded differently because Blur was actually good, is I guess what I'm saying.

Jesus, though, just 25 bands is so hard. I feel like crap leaving off... the aforementioned TMBG... Clapton, Hendrix, Zepplin, Lou Reed... Air... NIN keeps wanting to flip with Zappa into the Next Ten, Steely Dan keeps wanting to flip with Bowie into the Top Five... I feel like I've got ten children and I gotta pick which three I leave my enheritance to.

Even though all I seem to be able to leave them is a sentence ending in a preposition.

[Mite]

Dunno what to say... I really love Weird Al. I love comedy music and I love tight musicianship and... like... say what you will about Weird Al but often in the songs he parodies, the instrumentation is much better technically than that which he mocks.

Which is mind-blowingly awesome to me, as most other comedy rock is done with... you know... a guy strumming an acoustic guitar for one take or three teenagers in a bathroom with two Casios. The notable exceptions of Fruvous and TMBG, of course.

I really can't possibly write down 25 favorite artists, so I've basically stayed out of this thread. I just wanted to agree that Weird Al is suprisingly tight, and mention that I got to see him play accordian with Moxy Fruvous once. I don't remember what they played, but it rocked my little 17 year old ##### off. Take that how you will.

[theinevitable]

Man... I had no trouble finding a top-however-many-I-posted. Which is wierd, considering how much music I listen to. i guess there aren't that many bands that are candidates for "favorite," for me.

if it's any consolation, I don't like Blur. I read an entire book about Britpop, got home, downloaded Blur and Oasis and Elastica and such... and hated all of it.

the only relic of that spate of downloading is "24 Hour Party People," which was mentioned in the first chapter.

[AugustWest]

I love comedy music and I love tight musicianship and... like... say what you will about Weird Al but often in the songs he parodies, the instrumentation is much better technically than that which he mocks.

I honestly had no idea.  Good for Weird Al!

If you hadn't listed Zappa I would insist that you go listen to him now.  But you did, so I won't.

[KeithHernandez]

Man... I had no trouble finding a top-however-many-I-posted. Which is wierd, considering how much music I listen to. i guess there aren't that many bands that are candidates for "favorite," for me.

if it's any consolation, I don't like Blur. I read an entire book about Britpop, got home, downloaded Blur and Oasis and Elastica and such... and hated all of it.

the only relic of that spate of downloading is "24 Hour Party People," which was mentioned in the first chapter.

I really, really like brit-pop.  British music from the Hacienda-Radiohead is probably my favorite era of music.  I don't like Oasis, but most of the rest of the big names I love (Joy Division/ New Order, A Certain Ratio, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Blur, Pulp, Radiohead, more that I don't like as much because I can't think of, like the Auteurs that I just thought of).  If you like "24 Hour Party People" you should check out the movie of the same name and the albums Bummed and Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches by the Happy Mondays.  Also, the Stone Roses self titled first album is awesome. 

[theinevitable]

I will check these out.

what I really need to listen to is Joy Division.

[Carlos del Vaca]

The guy also puts on one of the best live shows ever, seriously.

I've never been to a Weird Al show, but I've seen him on TV a few times.  I am always blown away when they do a medley of current hits as a polka at blinding speed.  That shit is tight.

[wombat]

Little Mets deserves a tiny can for that defense of the funny.

But holy *&^% Carlos, what happened to the cow?

[Carlos del Vaca]

All this avatar chagin' going on, I figured it was time for something new.  Cylo there is the mascot of the Lancaster Barnstormers (that's a baseball team, for the non-sports inclined), and he is vaguely cow-like.

As long as I'm posting, here's the top 25 I came up with (order not absolute).
1.  R.E.M.
2.  Guided by Voices
3.  Doves
4.  Marvin Gaye
5.  Soundgarden
6.  Pearl Jam
7.  Tricky
8.  Massive Attack
9.  Afghan Whigs
10.  Smashing Pumpkins
11.  Earth Wind & Fire
12.  Ned's Atomic Dustbin
13.  giraffebone
14.  Buffalo Tom
15.  Grant Lee Buffalo
16.  Jeff Buckley
17.  Nirvana
18.  New Order
19.  Dinosaur Jr.
20.  Wilco
21.  Son Volt
22.  The Clash
23.  Big Audio Dynamite
24.  Broken Social Scene
25.  Spoon

[CortJstr]

All this avatar chagin' going on, I figured it was time for something new.  Cylo there is the mascot of the Lancaster Barnstormers (that's a baseball team, for the non-sports inclined), and he is vaguely cow-like.

Did you also hear about them on WTOP this morning or were you already all up in that hot Amish action?

[Carlos del Vaca]

Went for a game there last year.  I went to college in Lancaster, so it's an old stompin' ground.

[CortJstr]

Went for a game there last year.  I went to college in Lancaster, so it's an old stompin' ground.

Thus cutting off the need for a "do you pronounce Lancaster right" extension to this thread.

[wombat]

OK, I'll bite.  How do you pronounce Lancaster, other than as if you were speaking through a mouthful of whoopie pie?